The brush is basically the difference maker with this product – it’s slightly fan shaped, and is tapered on the end. It also has a curve to the brush, to help curl lashes. One side has small bristles to add volume, and the other side has longer bristles that lift and lengthen. What I did like is that it’s a hard silicone-type of brush, and the fine tooth “comb” does a good job of separating and defining. The shade Blackest Black is just that – it’s a dramatic color effect. However, this formula didn’t really knock my socks off. It still had some clumps to work though, and when I went to remove it at night, it was a bit difficult to remove completely with my normal makeup remover routine. Also, I’m not a fan of bulky mascara brushes – the brush head was definitely bigger than what I’m used to, but that to me is not what creates the volume. The packaging is also somewhat weird due to it being “oversized” – it’s not a normal tube, but echoes the CoverGirl Lash Blast packaging in being really thick in the middle. It was just sort of clunky to use, and took up a lot of room in my makeup bag. The plus side is that I didn’t have any flaking or smudging during the day. But in reality, for it being twice the cost of my e.l.f. Mineral mascara, I just don’t see a reason to make the switch.